Red Violin Playwright revisits Vivaldi, the inspiration of her first hit | Video

“Vivaldi was someone I grew up with, actually,” says playwright Ouchi. “I started playing the violin around (age) three and a half.

“I (still) have a tiny little violin at home.”

And thus, Vivaldi is one of the characters in The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye), which opens Friday night at the Martha Cohen Theatre.

It’s a revisitation of Ouchi’s first play, which Alberta Theatre Projects premiered back in 2003, which tells the story of a young Parisian woman, in the mid-18th century, trapped in a loveless marriage, who seeks inspiration from Vivaldi himself.

The drama was a breakthrough moment for Ouchi’s playwriting career — it was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award, produced as part of that year’s playRites Festival (her first of three to be staged there), translated into Japanese, published by Canadian Playwrights Press, and even read at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

She has since gone on to become a major voice in Canadian playwriting, but back then, Ouchi was a Calgary actor who had relocated to Edmonton.

And it turns out The Red Priest’s origin story is as random, and eccentric, and charming, in a way, as Spiderman’s.

It starts with Ouchi being one of 12 playwrights to receive a commission from Edmonton’s Catalyst Theatre to create a six-minute long play that includes a number between one and 12.

Besides the random number, each playwright was also required to fit their story and fictional world into a set designed by Bretta Gerecke.

“It was sort of an intriguing idea,” Ouchi says, “because I hadn’t really written a play before — I’d made films and worked professionally as an actor (she was part of the company in the 1999 playRites Festival and acted in two of those).

“I thought, ‘Well how hard can it be to write six minutes?’ I mean — not that bad.”

Then she went to the theatre, and drew a number out of a hat. It was the number eight.

Then, for the first time, she laid eyes on Gerecke’s set.

“It was quite a beautiful set,” she says, “but it was very formal, and very square ... It’s very symmetrical. It’s very artificial. I mean, it’s absolutely gorgeous, but it’s a highly structured environment.”

That made Ouchi think of an old-school French garden straight out of a Moliere play, or Dangerous Liasons.

“If you go to France,” she says, “and see the sort of classic French garden, the ones at Versailles, they’re so amazing — but they’re so formal. They’re not like a Japanese garden, where you’re trying to emulate nature — they’re very non-natural.

“In fact,” she says, “everything is trimmed.”

That vision of a formal French garden led Ouchi to the voice of her character.

“The first thing I was thinking about was a woman in a gown, sort of the 1700s, 18th century, running for her life through this garden — and that was an image that launched the play.”

Ouchi played the woman when Catalyst produced the show. Every night she was the eighth person doing their six minute story, and that’s when serendipity stepped in again.

“He used to watch my piece every night,” she says, “as he was preparing to make his entrance ... and he said, ‘How’d you like to come and be the playwright-in-residence at my theatre? And work on this play with me? And see if we can make it into a full length play?’ ”

And that’s how Ouchi turned a six-minute story that included the number eight into a critically-acclaimed drama that kick-started her career as a playwright.

“It was kind of an amazing beginning,” she says. “It wasn’t the usual start as a writer, for sure.”

Now, a decade later, Ouchi has stepped aside from performing the main role, and has been replaced by two women — Jamie Konchak as the unhappily married woman and Allison Lynch, who steps in to make music on the violin.

Ashley Wright is back to reprise his role as Vivaldi that he performed a decade ago, (ATP artistic director Vanessa Porteous is taking over directing from Jenkins).

And it turns out, Ouchi explains, her connection to Vivaldi runs deep. The composer worked in an orphanage for girls, so his music lends itself to young budding musicians like Ouchi was. She says finding the voice of the composer in her writing came naturally. During those violin-playing years of hers — she kept at it until she was in high school — she had quite a few heated imaginary conversations with Vivaldi.

“Yeah, (and I was) usually crying (during them),” she says, “Wishing I was outside playing with my friends. I hated him.”

Alberta Theatre Projects presents The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye) at the Martha Cohen Theatre until May 17

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Red Violin Playwright revisits Vivaldi, the inspiration of her first hit | Video

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